Stephanie Farr

Staff Writer

Stephanie Farr covers Philly Culture for the Philadelpha Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. She writes about the people, places, things, and ideas that make Philly and its suburbs weird, wild, and wonderfully unique.

Update: The highway patrol supervisor seen hitting the woman in the video has been identified by sources as Lt. Jonathan Josey II, a man who once nominated himself to be a Daily News Sexy Single.

Josey, 39, a Daily News Sexy Single in 2006, said his most outstanding features were his "charm and magnetic personality." He said he was looking for a "sexy, sexy, sexy" woman and was sick of meeting women that act like girls.

In July 2010 while he was off duty, Josey was stabbed outside a West Philly bar while trying to break up a fight. In March of 2010, he fatally shot an armed robber in Montgomery County when he interrupted a robbery at a 7-Eleven.

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A Philadelphia police supervisor hit a Puerto Rican Day reveler twice in the head so hard yesterday that the blows sent the woman to the ground and then she was charged in the incident, according to police and a video posted on YouTube Sunday.

When the video begins, it appears several revelers are spraying water on the street and on the police officers. It is unclear if the woman is one of them, but she does have what appears to be a water bottle in her hand.

A police supervisor in a white shirt seems to zero in on the woman and as she tries to walk away from him, he comes up behind her and hits her in the face and then in the back of the head. She falls to the ground and seems to be asking the officer "why" as he places handcuffs on her.

Once in handcuffs, she is led away by two other officers and is seen with blood on her face. All the while, a Puerto Rican flag hangs from the back of her pants.

The video, titled "Philadelphia Police Brutality" is 36 seconds long and had more than 3,800 views by 3:30 p.m.

Police spokesman Lt. Ray Evers said the department is "fully aware" of the video and what it depicts. He said the officer involved has been identified and Internal Affairs opened up an investigation in to the incident this morning. He said Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who is in San Diego at a conference, is also aware of the video.

Evers declined to publicly identify the officer, but did say he is a supervisor in Highway Patrol. He did not know if the officer had been placed on desk duty.

Police also declined to identify the woman, who was given a disorderly conduct citation for the incident. According to Evers, the 39-year-old woman's citation states "liquid and some other objects were thrown at a group of officers causing a large crowd."

She was the only person given a citation for the incident, Evers said.

The incident did not happen along the Puerto Rican Day Parade route, but rather, at 5th Street and Lehigh Avenue in North Philadelphia, according to police.

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